Mayor Rob Ford’s plan for the Port Lands is “window-dressing for an old-fashion land deal,” say a group of academics, urban designers and architects in an open letter to city councillors.

The letter, delivered to the mayor and councillors Thursday afternoon, takes aim at the ambitious vision championed by the mayor and his brother Councillor Doug Ford to put a mega-mall, Ferris wheel, monorail and high rises on the site at the foot of the Don River. The mayor also wants to kick-start construction by taking control of development on the eastern harbour, a job now filled by Waterfront Toronto, a three-government agency that has been working on developing the area for the past decade.

The mayor’s new proposals “are a tired recycling of 1960’s thinking,” the letter says. “The Lower Don Lands should not be treated as a for-profit Disney World or Casino-like site.” The mayor’s plans, represented in flashy conceptual drawings presented last week, are “shockingly inferior” to the existing plan developed by Waterfront Toronto that includes a new mouth for the Don River and riverside parkland, as well as mixed-use development.

“Given that our waterfront has always been a working waterfront, it would be a mistake to make it a spectacle,” urban guru and business professor Richard Florida said at a news conference. Prof. Florida, author of the Rise of the Creative Class, was one of 147 signatories to the letter.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it – the way it was foisted on the city, the way it was foisted on council,” he said of the mayor’s plan, developed by a London-based architect without the knowledge of city councillors.

Councillor Ford, who first outlined details of the plan, said he has been approached by a long line of foreign and local investors interested in the site including an Australian-based mall developer.

The proposal has already divided members of the city’s executive committee, with rookie councillor Jaye Robinson declaring publicly this week that she cannot support the plan or the move to take control of the site from Waterfront Toronto.

Council will consider a recommendation next week by the city manager to seize control of the 180 hectare site, but with some of his supporters already declaring they cannot back the plan, there are questions about whether it can pass without major concessions.

Paul Bedford, the city’s former head of planning and another signatory to the letter, urged Toronto residents to push councillors to stand behind the existing Waterfront Toronto plan. “My advice is stay the course. No compromise,” he said.

via It’s a mistake making Toronto’s waterfront ‘a spectacle,’ critics say – The Globe and Mail.